Who
Packs Your Parachute?
Rev.
Mark Stringer
First
Unitarian Church of Des Moines
11/11/01
Reading
“Contact”
by Gordon McKeeman
I
stretch forth my hand
Knowing not what I shall touch…
A tender spot,
An open wound,
Warmth,
Pulsing life,
Fragile blossoms,
A rock,
Ice.
I
am tentative, trembling…
Wishing to avoid hurt,
Wanting to link my life with Life.
Lonely, I desire companions
Naked, I long for defenders.
Lost, I want to find…
To be found.
Will
I touch strangers
Or enemies
Or nothing?
My
hand is withdrawn
But still it touches
My vulnerable skin, my furrowed brow,
My empty pocket, my full heart.
Do others reach, tremble, withdraw?
Do they desire, long, seek?
Are they lonely, fearful, lost?
Will they grasp a tentative, trembling hand?
I
stretch forth my hand
Knowing not what I shall touch…
But hoping…
Sermon
When
I discovered that the endowment disbursement
committee had planned a presentation for this
Sunday, I figured that it would be a good time to
share this modern day parable:
There
was a woman who wanted peace in the world and
peace in her heart and all sorts of good things,
but she was very frustrated. The world
seemed to be falling apart. She would read
the papers and get depressed. One day she
decided to go shopping, and she went into a mall
and picked a store at random. She walked in
and was surprised to see Jesus behind the
counter. She knew it was Jesus, because he
looked just like the pictures she’d seen on holy
cards and devotional pictures. She looked up
again at him, and finally she got up her nerve and
asked, “Excuse me, are you Jesus?” “I
am.” “Do you work here?” “No,”
Jesus said, “I own the store.” “Oh,
what do you sell in here?” “Oh, just
about anything!” “Anything?” “Yeah,
anything you want. What do you want?”
She said, “I don’t know.” “Well,”
Jesus said, “feel free, walk up and down the
aisles, make a list, see what it is you want, and
then come back and we’ll see what we can do for
you.”
She did just that, walked up and down the
aisles. There was peace on earth, no more
war, no hunger or poverty, peace in families, no
more drugs, harmony, clean air, careful use of
resources. She wrote furiously. By the
time she got back to the counter, she had a long
list. Jesus took the list, skimmed through
it, looked up at her and smiled. “No
problem.” And then he bent down behind the
counter and picked out all sorts of things, stood
up, and laid out the packets. She asked, “What
are these?” Jesus replied, “Seed
packets. This is a catalog store.” She
said, “You mean I don’t get the finished
product?” “No, this is a place of
dreams. You come and see what it looks like,
and I give you the seeds. You plant the
seeds. You go home and nurture them and help
them to grow and someone else reaps the benefits.”
“Oh,” she said. And she left the store
without buying anything.
I
think this church is like that catalog
store. We gather together here and through
dialogue and socializing and learning and
questioning, we choose and collect the seed
packets to our dreams…dreams for our own lives
and dreams for our planet. But these seeds
must be planted in order for them to grow.
Our dreams must be tended to before they will
become reality. Building a strong endowment
for our church is just one way that we can tend to
these seeds for it is a way to insure that First
Unitarian will continue to provide a liberal
religious voice here in Des Moines. As the
endowment grows, the possibilities arising from
its existence will grow as well and future
generations will have the opportunity to further
pursue our stated mission: “to
nurture the intellectual and spiritual growth of
our adults and children; to provide a safe and
vibrant community of support and renewal; to be a
force for ethical, social and environmental
responsibility in our community and world.”
Setting aside money toward the endowment is a way
to share our dreams of today with those who will
tend to those same dreams tomorrow. It is a
way to honor those from this church who have
contributed to the quality of our lives and it is
a way to contribute to the lives of people who we
may never know.
When
I think about contributing to the lives of people
we may never know, I think about the story of
Charles Plumb,
a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, who served as a jet
pilot in Vietnam. Perhaps you too have heard his
story, for it has been the subject of a popular
Internet message for several months. After
having successfully completed 75 combat missions,
Plumb’s plane was shot down by a surface-to-air
missile. Plumb ejected from his burning
aircraft and parachuted into enemy hands. He
was captured and spent six years in a Vietnamese
prison. He did survive the ordeal and now
lectures on the lessons he learned from his
experience.
Many
years after his release, when Plumb and his wife
were sitting in a restaurant, a man from another
table recognized the former pilot and introduced
himself, saying "You're Plumb! You flew jet
fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier
Kitty Hawk, You were shot down!"
Plumb,
startled by the man’s knowledge of his past,
asked, "How in the world did you know
that?"
"I
packed your parachute," the man replied.
Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man
pumped his hand and said, "I guess it
worked!"
Plumb
assured him, "It sure did. If your chute
hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."
Plumb
couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that
man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he
might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white
hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers.
I wondered how many times I might have seen him
and not even said ‘Good morning, how are you?’
or anything because, you see, I was a fighter
pilot and he was just a sailor.” Plumb thought
of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long
wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully
weaving the shroud lines and folding the silks of
each chute, holding in his hands each time the
fate of someone he didn't know.
Now
on the lecture circuit, Plumb uses this experience
as a focus for his talks. He asks his
audience, "Who packs your
parachute?" Who is it that contributes
to the quality of your life, often without
recognition? Who is it that provides what
you need to make it through each day? Plumb points
out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when
his plane was shot down over enemy territory; he
needed his physical parachute, his mental
parachute, his emotional parachute, and his
spiritual parachute. He called on all these
supports before reaching safety. Plumb’s
six-year confinement gave him a great deal of time
to think about those in his life who had offered
him words and gestures of encouragement, support
and challenge. And now, many years after the war,
Plumb’s visit with the sailor who had literally
packed his parachute, again reminded him of the
gifts we can unknowingly receive every day…gifts
freely offered by those who often go unnoticed, or
unappreciated. Gifts that once acknowledged
can transform our lives.
This
morning, in our continued celebration of life, I’m
thinking about those people who impact our lives
in a positive way, often times without recognition—people
such as the clerk at a local store who always
offers a pleasant smile, the supportive family
member who loves unconditionally, the teacher who
gave us the courage to believe in ourselves at the
time when we needed it the most, the public
servants who keep our cities running safely—the
police department, the fire department,
construction and sanitation workers. The
list is endless, and I guess that is the
point. We all have the ability…if not the
responsibility…to pack each other’s
parachutes, to make life easier for our companions
on this earth. You never know how your
simple acts of kindness can impact the world, but
rest assured, they will.
Before
and during my time in seminary, I spent some time
in a job that taught me a lot about kindness and
serving others: I waited tables in a
suburban Chicago cafe. Over my seven-year tenure
as a waiter, I served food to thousands of people,
encountering in the process a wide variety of
personalities. Here you might expect me to
tell you stories of how I ministered to the needs
of my customers, how I worked to brighten the day
of those who sat in my section. While I
suppose that may have happened from time to time,
I believe my customers may have served me more
than I served them. As those of you who have
waited tables could confirm, hungry people are not
always the easiest to be around. With apparent
ease, some customers can disregard what we might
call the inherent worth and dignity of those
serving them…particularly when they are not
being served in a way that meets their
expectations. These customers allow their
hunger, or privilege, or general impatience, to
overwhelm their recognition that the people they
are disrespecting are the same people who will
eventually help them alleviate their hunger.
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
Though it wasn’t always easy, I could usually
see past this behavior; I could disregard the way
certain customers barked their orders, or demanded
special attention, or refused to look me in the
eye. I could see that underneath their
mistreatment of their waiter was a foundation of
sorrow probably many years in the making.
The primary reason I could maintain my composure
with those who had apparently lost theirs was the
knowledge that for every difficult customer, there
were several who did try their best to see me as
more than just a server…who saw me as a person
who happened to be a server. These were
people who took the time to acknowledge my
presence before them, who were sensitive to my
circumstances, who could see that I was hard at
work and who knew that, even when their food took
longer than they expected, there were many doing
their best in an attempt to keep them happy.
These kind customers were some of the people who
packed my parachute as I worked my way
through seminary. They kept tabs on my
progress, offered words of encouragement, and
reminded me of the importance of kindness.
And in turn, their generosity of spirit empowered
me to be more patient with the people who were not
so giving. Kindness seems to work that way…it is
contagious. And those of us who have been
lucky enough to receive the gift of kindness have
a responsibility to pass it on. Along these
lines, I appreciate the words of a woman who has
had the privilege of being raised with
kindness. She says:
“I
am one of these people who have been loved every
day of my life. I am a person who has been
told by the words or actions of those people
closest to me, ‘We just think you’re
great. You can just do anything. You
can be anything.’ I remember thinking a
long time ago that in this painful world, if you
have been given the kind of things I’ve been
given…the gift[s] of limitless expectations for
your life, and security, and a nest to come from,
one that was warm and safe, and you look around
you and if you have any sensitivity at all, you
know that’s not the way most people got their
start or live their lives. And for me I
would think it would be the road to madness if you
didn’t try to give some of it away.”
Of
course, not all of us have experienced that kind
of loving childhood or that constant
encouragement. I think that is why it is so
important for those of us who have known kindness
to share the wealth, to give to those who might
not know how to give back. Even if we do not
see an immediate reward, we can still reach out to
others, assured that the kindness we offer will
eventually return to us. Giving kindness away,
without expectation of it being returned, is one
of the means by which we can pack the parachutes
of others, but perhaps more importantly it is a
way we can pack our own parachutes. When we give
of ourselves to others, we empower them to do the
same, and thereby increase the greater spiritual
wealth of our world. Albert Schweitzer
conveyed this point well when he wrote, “I don’t
know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do
know: the only ones among you who will be
really happy are those who have sought and found
how to serve.”
In
our busy lives, it can be easy to overlook those
around us, to allow our desire to chip away at our
never-ending list of tasks to overwhelm our
ability to see how our actions impact the lives of
others. And yet, when we add to the quality of
life of our companions on this earth, we
contribute to the increased possibility of a world
where the quality of our lives will improve as
well…a world where justice and kindness are the
norm.